Behind The Mic With Joe Mathieu: Still Skeptical Of Wall Street

BOSTON (CBS) – It’s been five years since the financial crisis that began on Wall Street and people still remember it well.

That’s when we saw the housing bubble pop, the stock market fall out of bed and the collapse of some big firms like Lehman Brothers, not to mention the Wall Street bailout that followed.

People felt burned because they were.

And a new poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News finds the meltdown still stings for a lot of us. Forty-two-percent say they have a negative view of Wall Street institutions and only 14-percent have a positive view.

Almost as bad as Congressional approval ratings.

And that is saying something following the massive rally we’ve seen this year on Wall Street. The stock market – as measured by the S&P 500 – is up about 18-percent so far this year, helping to fatten a lot of portfolios and restore many retirement accounts.

The disparity recalls the story of two Americas. I know it sounds cliché but it’s hard to ignore, especially after learning this week the top one-percent of earners are making a bigger share of U.S. household income than they have since the 1920’s.

And this same poll finds more Americans consider themselves poor than did 15 years ago.

The fact is a lot of people don’t feel any connection to what happens on Wall Street. At least when the news is good.